Driving 101
by the ramblin rose
Summary: Caryl AU. Daryl is a driving instructor who can teach virtually anyone to drive. There are some students, though, that he's more dedicated to than others.


**AN: This is just a fluffy little oneshot for therealsonia who requested it.**

 **I own nothing from The Walking Dead.**

 **I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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Everyone had jobs that they took to make ends meet. Everyone had jobs, at some point in their lives, that made the wake up in the morning and wonder if a roof over their head was really all that important or if they might actually be the one human being on Earth that could survive without ever eating again. What made any particular job _that kind of job_ mostly depended on the personality of the person in question. Sometimes it was coworkers. Sometimes it was the boss. Other times, it was the demanding schedule.

And sometimes it was the sharp realization that, for the complimentary price of almost nothing, you'd been suckered into selling your life and signing up for an all-day game of "is this how I'm going to die?"

Daryl had decided to become a certified driving instructor not too long after he'd heard some rumors about the local high school's driving teacher being prepared to retire. Daryl wasn't cut out to teach much, but he figured driving was something he could handle teaching. After all, he'd been driving since before it had been legal for him to do so. He'd talked to the old man, over a burger and some fries at a local diner, and the man had basically told him that the only thing he'd need to have for the job—besides his license of course—was patience.

And with patience, which Daryl had a good deal of, and his license, he could sell his services to the high school and to people looking for private lessons.

What the old man hadn't mentioned was that being an alcoholic might very well end up being a side effect to the job. Daryl's first day on the job, immediately getting a position teaching for the high school part time, he'd been in a car that had run a red light, a car that had hit a mailbox, a car that had been through one drainage ditch, a car that had crossed over lines enough that it no longer scared him until he could see the whites of the eyes of the oncoming drivers, and he'd witnessed the unfortunate demise of three squirrels who simply hadn't made up their minds in time.

That was his first day.

He'd immediately gone home, sat down with a six pack, and asked himself if it was really worth it. The pay wasn't that great, but it could be steady pay. Selling lessons on the side would only increase what he'd get. And, truthfully, he could put in a lot harder day elsewhere. By the time he'd finished his six pack, he'd resolved that he'd go back to work the next day.

And he did go back. And he went back every day after that, too.

His reputation as being a patient instructor spread pretty quickly. There were a few other private instructors in town, but all of them had the reputation of being a bit on the hot tempered side. They screamed, they yelled, they banged on the window—and no matter how much he might want to do it, Daryl knew that those things rarely made the situation better. The only thing worse than a clueless driver was a clueless driver who was _terrified_ of elements both outside and _inside_ their car. Before Daryl knew it, most of his days were booked. He got up early in the morning, went to the local high school, did lessons for four hours, and then the rest of the day he did hour lessons with those who called and requested them.

He was in high demand. He worked with teenagers who had failed their tests, teenagers who hadn't taken their tests, senior citizens who had never had a car and wanted a taste of the open road before they were declared unfit to drive, and anyone and everyone in between.

His brother, too, had gotten involved. They worked together now. Merle had a different kind of patience than Daryl did, though, which really meant that he had none at all. He could work with the thicker skinned people that called them about driving and he cleared up some of Daryl's time for what Merle called the "sensitive souls" that wanted lessons. They had, at this point, developed a questionnaire to decide who might take a new driver on, and so far it was working for them.

But there were still days when Daryl saw his life flash before his eyes—most days in fact—and he wondered if it was really worth it to keep his job. And there were still some mornings when, staring at a name of someone new that he was going to entrust his life to, he considered quitting his job and going back to the two-bit construction jobs that he and Merle had held down before all of this.

Today was one of those days. He had a new driver coming in. She had called and requested, a little enthusiastically, all the time that he had to spare. She wanted to learn to drive and she wanted to do it as soon as possible. She wanted, as she explained it, the rush package. She'd insisted, right off the bat, that she wanted three hours of training—and that she wanted whatever else Daryl had to offer in the days to come.

And it had been Daryl she'd specifically requested. Apparently Merle's reputation got around as easily as Daryl's did and she was adamant in insisting that she couldn't and wouldn't learn to drive in what she called a _hostile environment._

Daryl sat in the little office—barely more than a shed—that he and his brother shared. This was where they kept all their files. They did their paperwork there, dealt with anyone that needed dealing with there, and they spent their free time there answering calls and filling in schedules. When the car pulled up outside, Daryl sat up and stretched so that he could see out of the window. Merle was doing the same. Whoever was driving didn't even kill the motor. They waited while another woman got out of the car—no doubt Daryl's lesson for the day—and then they pulled off even as she was waving goodbye to them.

Merle whistled.

"Now I know why the hell you give me old mister Burns for the day, brother," Merle said. "Just remember—she's payin' your ass for hours in the passenger seat, not in the damn backseat."

Daryl threw the only thing that he could reach at his brother—a blue squishy stress ball that the high school had handed out at a meeting—and he got to his feet to greet the woman when she came in.

She was average height and well-built. Her hair was silver, but she didn't look even old enough to have that much silver in her hair. Daryl didn't figure she was too much older than he was and he had a good deal less gray than his brother. She had a beautiful smile, though, and she offered it to Daryl with an outstretched hand.

"Carol Peletier?" Daryl asked.

"Just Carol," the woman corrected. "I'm getting rid of the last name as soon as possible."

Daryl nodded and raised his eyebrows.

"But that is your legal name?" He asked.

She nodded and he went on, slightly distracted by the bubbly personality of the woman and the pretty face that lit up with her excitement over learning to drive, to request the things that he needed to get them moving. As soon as the paperwork was done, he'd hand his life over to her for a couple of hours and, hopefully, he wouldn't have to tell her that it looked like they had a lifetime of work ahead of them.

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"Do you think he's really dead, though?" Carol asked, looking into the rearview mirror again. Daryl was trying to distract her away from it. For one thing, he'd really like her eyes to be on the road in front of them. For another, they were so far past the squirrel that there was no way she'd see him. "Oh—I didn't mean to..."

Daryl didn't want to point out that he'd seen far worse than what she'd done. At least she'd actually applied the brakes a little, even though he'd reminded her not to swerve. She hadn't, as he'd felt like some had, almost seen the poor creature as a target in some kind of video game.

"He's fine," Daryl lied. "Probably just—stunned. He'll be alright. Home by now. Why don't'cha—turn left up there? On Chestnut?"

He'd done with Carol what he did with most people he was starting with. He'd brought her as far out in the country as he could. Out here, they ran into relatively little traffic. There weren't too many challenges to overcome. It was a good place to learn the basics and get started. She could work her way up to more hectic driving when she was comfortable with the basics of starting, stopping, signaling, and turning.

Carol grew visibly tense at the suggestion that she should turn. She flicked on the windshield wipers, got those under control, and then flicked on the turn signal. As soon as the turn was signaled, though, despite their geographic location, she seemed to think that she could turn. She moved to yank the wheel, which would have sent them into a drainage ditch, and Daryl barked loudly enough to get her sudden attention.

"Not yet!" He said. "You gotta wait until you're actually going to make it onto the road. Don't turn the minute you signal."

Carol muttered an apology and then finally reached the road. Instead of taking the approach she had before, though, she did something of a swaying turn. Daryl realized they weren't going to make the road. Instead, they were going to somewhat cut across it and go off into the field on the other side. He reached and finished turning the steering wheel so that they at least turned onto the road, even if it was into the other lane.

Carol was panting like she'd run a marathon. Daryl was simply thankful that they hadn't seen another car for at least a half an hour.

"How was that?" Carol asked, once she'd straightened up the car.

"That was great," Daryl said. "Just great. It's especially great if you don't never have to ever share the road with not another car ever."

Daryl hadn't even been terribly harsh about it. He hadn't even raised his voice. He'd held back the frustration of every single mistake that had been made since she'd buckled her seatbelt. He'd bitten his tongue at the desire to tell her that he had high school students who drove better than her their first time out.

Yet she responded in a way that he hadn't expected at all.

When she broke down, she came entirely and completely unglued. It started with a slow and quiet trickle of tears down her cheeks that she brushed away against her shoulder—snatching the car as she did—and then with each snatch of the car it just got worse until a wave took over her. Daryl, finally accepting that this wasn't going to simply pass, helped her get the car pulled over on the side of the road and he reached over to turn the thing off.

"I didn't mean to upset you like that," Daryl said.

"You're right," she sobbed. Daryl dug around in the side of the door and found some fast food napkins to offer her. They were the best he could do as far as tissues went. "You're right," she said. "I can't do it. I can't—do anything right. I've never..."

She broke off the sobbing, suddenly, with a growl. She shook her head at something that Daryl couldn't hear or see, and she blew her nose.

"Forget it," she said. "Forget it. Just—just forget it."

"Forget what?" Daryl asked.

"This," Carol said. "This whole thing. Just—forget it. It was stupid and I can't drive."

Daryl sat there for a moment and stared ahead of them at the unchanging scenery. This, whatever it was, that was getting to the woman? It went beyond the driving lessons.

"Nobody can drive until they can," Daryl said. "Works that way with most shit. You couldn't walk until you learned that neither."

"Yeah well—I wasn't this bad at walking," Carol said.

Daryl chuckled to himself.

"How do you know?" He asked. "Hell—probably busted your ass a thousand times."

She offered him a half choked laugh, but she seemed to be calming some.

"Why are you doing this?" Daryl asked. "You called me and you were gung-ho about this shit. So excited to learn to drive and right now. So why are you doing this?"

"Because I never learned," Carol said. She shrugged. "Because—I never needed to learn. I didn't have a car when I was young and—I wasn't getting a car. So why did I need to learn? And then—when I married..." She broke off and shook her head before she continued. "When I married? He—liked that I couldn't drive. He liked knowing where I was. What I was doing. I couldn't drive and he could keep me at home that way. So I never learned to drive. When I left him? I didn't even have the dignity of driving myself out of there—I had to call the police. Of course, they'd have come anyway but—I guess I just wanted to learn."

Daryl sat there for a moment. What he usually heard was that someone wanted an escape from their parents. Someone wanted to cross something off their bucket list, even. This was different. This was—if he was hearing it correctly, and he felt he was—that someone was wanting to take their life back from some asshole who'd had charge of it. And this? This daily task that people took for granted every time they got behind the wheel of their car? This would be a big step in taking back that life.

Daryl reached over and turned the key in the ignition.

"Check your mirrors before you pull back out," Daryl said. "Even if there ain't nobody out here, you gotta pretend there is."

Carol looked at him, perhaps a little bewildered. She shook her head.

"Daryl, it's no use," she said.

"I was riding with some kid when he drove the last damn car I had into Miller's Pond," Daryl said. "He got his license. Pretty good kid. Never got a ticket that I know of. Check your mirrors."

"But..." Carol stammered.

Daryl shook his head at her this time.

"You wanna learn to drive, and I'ma make sure you do," Daryl said. "I'm off the clock for the rest of the day. You bought the rest of my time on the books, and off the books I'm giving the rest of the day free. By the time I take you—wherever you want me to take you? You're at least going to have the basics down. And you're gonna be damn fine at 'em because I don't accept no less."

"I can't ask you to..." Carol started, but Daryl cut her off. He couldn't help but smile at the conflict on her face—the mix between the hope for what he was saying and the guilt of taking up his time. He shook his head at her again.

"You wanna pay me back?" Daryl asked. She nodded slightly at him. "Then when we wrap up for the night, you drive us downtown to get something to eat." He held his hand up quickly at his protest. "I'm not talking about a date," he said. "We just met and I'm your teacher—I'm talking about...dinner. Because I'ma be hungry and you are too. Then—you'll drive me wherever you want me to drop you off and I'll see you tomorrow when I wrap up at the high school for normal hours."

Carol hesitated a moment, her mouth opening and closing like she wanted to say something but didn't know what to say.

"We gotta deal?" Daryl asked. He got a slight nod in response. Daryl smiled to himself. "Check your mirrors," he said.


End file.
